The Swinging Blue Jeans

The Swinging Blue Jeans would be the standard bearers for the Merseybeat sound of the mid-'60s if it weren't for that other Liverpool group called the Beatles. The Blue Jeans played the same R&B and rock & roll covers as that other group, even did a similar residency at the legendary Cavern Club as that other group did, and at their best, even sounded like them. Unfortunately, the Blue Jeans weren't quite the songwriters that the Beatles were, and while their covers of songs like Betty Everett's "You're No Good" (later a huge hit for Linda Ronstadt) sound fresh and inspired, hundreds of bands were all doing these same songs. That these guys were doing them better than most still left them as essentially a really good Liverpool bar band without a strong creative direction to give them any real singularity. This 27-song collection shows both the Swinging Blue Jeans' strengths and weaknesses. They played and sang with a wonderfully joyous energy, but so did that other band, and that other band just happened to write really good songs. History turned on just that point. ~ Steve Leggett, All Music Guide